The Pangs of Distress

(Mt 24:6-8) You are going to hear of wars and reports of wars; see that you are not terrified. For these things must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be food shortages and earthquakes in one place after another. All these things are a beginning of pangs of distress.

What the word means

TThe Greek word Jesus used is the one for the pains of childbirth, and anyone who has been through a birth knows how those go. They don't come once. They come in waves, each one closer, longer and harder than the one before, until the birth. Jesus picked the word on purpose. He was describing a phase that builds, not a single sign you could point to, and he said right at the start that when it begins "the end is not yet." So the pangs open the sequence, with everything else still to come after them.

Where they fall in the order

Matthew 24 runs in a clear line. First the pangs of distress (verses 6-8), then persecution and apostasy (verses 9-13), then the good news preached in all the earth (verse 14), then the disgusting thing standing in a holy place (verse 15), then the great tribulation (verse 21), and only after all that the sign of the Son of man (verse 30). Daniel gives the same order from another side. The king of the north is turned back by the ships of Kittim and turns against the holy covenant (Daniel 11:29-30), honors the god of fortresses (Daniel 11:38), plants his tents in the holy land and comes to his end (Daniel 11:45), and then "Michael will stand up" and a time of distress unlike any before begins (Daniel 12:1).

Not 1914

The teaching that the pangs of distress began in 1914 depends on an invisible presence of Christ that nobody saw, and on a beast from the abyss that has to rise twice before the dates will fit. Jesus warned about exactly this kind of announcement.

(Lu 21:8) He said: "Look out that you are not misled; for many will come on the basis of my name, saying, 'I am he,' and, 'The due time has approached.' Do not go after them."

A false start date does something quiet to a person. If the big event is already behind you, the warnings meant to keep you awake stop meaning much, and that is how it works as a sedative. The studies on this site treat the pangs of distress as still ahead of the great tribulation, and they read current events against Daniel 11 instead of against a calendar fixed a century ago.

What to do about them

Jesus gave the signs so the ones watching would recognize the season and lift their heads (Luke 21:28), and he never meant them as material for setting dates. So learn the order, and get out of Babylon the Great before she falls. And when the two witnesses begin to prophesy, be ready to hear them.